Jyoti Mishra's website

DJing at the Bless!

I’m currently DJing every Monday evening at the Blessington Carriage Pub in Derby. I’m on from 9.30 – 11.30 and play a varied set. My general rule of thumb is that I don’t play anything currently in the charts. I also try to steer clear of tracks that are (over)played in other venues.

Basically, I want to expose people to new music, both new new (as in just released) and old new (most people aren’t familiar with Al Bowlly).

I can do this at the Bless because, firstly, I don’t have to keep a dancefloor filled. So I can take more risks and play a broader range of genres. Secondly, the management is very sympathetic to my idiosyncratic DJing perspective.

I do take requests and play them, if I’ve got the tracks. Currently, the most requested band is Thursday and I’m happy to play them because, as far as I know, they’re not played elsewhere in Derby. But once they are, there’ll be no point me playing them any more.

What I’m trying to promote is a culture of interest in the unknown. This is just cos I get fed up going out and knowing every single track/band that I hear. I’d personally love to go to a night where I didn’t know 90% of the music. I find it depressing that a lot of people just want to hear the same tiny micro-genres over and over again, whether it’s hyper-obscure emo, “underground” hip hop or mainstream corporate rock like the White Stripes. I mix things up because I get bored of hearing just the one bloody genre. Where’s the light and shade? I blame the themed music channels for the narrowing of people’s tastes: nowadays you can just sit in front of Scuzz or MTV Base and be assured of never being surprised.

On the other hand, I love pop music because pop isn’t a genre, it’s the best stuff across all genres. I do pop DJing. I shan’t be sticking on 12-minute prog epics purely because I find them boring. So, I’m not playing deliberately obscure or hard to listen to kind of stuff – I’m convinced all the tracks I play are very poppy. Indeed, some of them are famous pop hits from the past.

These well-known songs aren’t included for any kitsch value, I genuinely love them. If you hear me playing Abba, it won’t be because I think they’re “cheesy”, it’ll be because I think they were a great pop band. Only wankers like music “ironically.” There is no ‘it’s so cheesy it’s good.’ That’s a bullshit excuse for people worried about how cool they appear to their mates.

Below, I’ve posted the playlists from the previous two weeks. I didn’t remember to save the first week, sadly. The playlists are pretty much direct exports from WinAmp, I’ve just tidied up the paths a bit.

So, if you like the look of what I’m playing, pop along! Hell, you may think what I play is shit but at least it’s different shit.